How to Focus When You Don't Feel Like Doing Anything

You've got one job, and your "feel like it" says three percent. Then a friend texts, and it's ninety in one second. So what is that feeling really measuring, and how do you focus when it reads zero? A wasp-sting patient in Paris, a plate of radishes, a rat that won't climb for its dinner and a Christmas homework experiment hold the answer. 0:00 3 percent... then 90 1:14 Who made you a battery? 2:16 The radish test 3:18 The rat that won't climb 4:23 Battery or price? 4:50 The price of starting 6:02 The battery that wasn't 7:33 The man who couldn't start 8:56 Press start Sources (full list with every claim and hedge in the film's SOURCES.md): Laplane D et al. (1984). Pure psychic akinesia with bilateral lesions of basal ganglia. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 47:377-385. Laplane D & Dubois B (2001). Auto-activation deficit: a basal ganglia related syndrome. Mov Disord 16:810-814. Beard GM (1881). American Nervousness: Its Causes and Consequences. New York: Putnam. Baumeister RF, Bratslavsky E, Muraven M & Tice DM (1998). Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? JPSP 74:1252-1265. Hagger MS et al. (2016). A multilab preregistered replication of the ego-depletion effect. Perspect Psychol Sci 11:546-573. Vohs KD et al. (2021). A multisite preregistered paradigmatic test of the ego-depletion effect. Psychol Sci 32:1566-1581. Salamone JD, Cousins MS & Bucher S (1994). Behav Brain Res 65:221-229; Cousins MS et al. (1996). Behav Brain Res 74:189-197. Treadway MT et al. (2012). Dopaminergic mechanisms of individual differences in human effort-based decision-making. J Neurosci 32:6170-6176. Kurzban R, Duckworth A, Kable JW & Myers J (2013). An opportunity cost model of subjective effort and task performance. Behav Brain Sci 36:661-679. Muraven M & Slessareva E (2003). Mechanisms of self-control failure: Motivation and limited resources. PSPB 29:894-906. Ruby MB, Dunn EW et al. (2011). The invisible benefits of exercise. Health Psychol 30:67-74. Gilman CP (1913). Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper. The Forerunner 4:271. Dimidjian S et al. (2006). Randomized trial of behavioral activation, cognitive therapy, and antidepressant medication. J Consult Clin Psychol 74:658-670. Wiehler A et al. (2022). A neuro-metabolic account of why daylong cognitive work alters the control of economic decisions. Curr Biol 32:3564-3575. Gollwitzer PM & Brandstätter V (1997). Implementation intentions and effective goal pursuit. JPSP 73:186-199. Milkman KL, Minson JA & Volpp KGM (2014). Holding the Hunger Games hostage at the gym. Manage Sci 60:283-299. If a flat, no-drive feeling lasts for weeks whatever you try, please talk to a doctor. Subscribe for more stories like this.